1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to a filter clamping device for water purifiers.
Description of the Conventional Art
2. In a typical water purifier used for providing pure potable water, tap water such as city water passes through a filtering means so that various harmful materials are removed from tap water. The typical water purifiers have been generally classified into several types, that is, natural-filtering type water purifiers, serial-filtering type water purifiers, ion exchange resin type water purifiers and reverse osmotic type water purifiers.
In a typical reverse osmotic water purifier, tap water is pressurized and passes through a synthetic osmotic membrane thereby being purified. The above synthetic osmotic membrane filters off various heavy metals, bacteria and cancer-causing materials from the tap water but exclusively allows pure water with dissolved oxygen to pass therethrough. The reverse osmotic water purifiers have been typically used in updated science industries, the medical field and high precision electronic industries. The reverse osmotic water purifying technique also has been actively used with domestic or business water purifiers recently, due to water contamination.
FIGS. 1 and 2 show the construction of a typical water purifier. As shown in the drawings, a filter unit 4 comprising a series of filters is installed inside the casing 1 of the water purifier. The filters of the unit 4 are connected to a water supply pipe 3 in series. The pipe 3 extends from a tap 2 so that the filters of the unit 4 remove various harmful materials from tap water such as city water, which is supplied from the tap 2 through the pipe 3, thus purifying the water. A purified water tank 5 is placed over and connected to the filter unit 4. The above tank 5 contains the purified water discharged from the filter unit 4. The water purifier also includes two additional water tanks, that is, hot water tank 7 and cold water tank 8 which are placed under the purified water tank 5. The hot and cold water tanks 7 and 8 are connected to the purified water tank 5 through respective pipes 6. The purified water of the tank 5 is discharged into the hot water tank 7 thus being heated to an appropriate hot temperature prior to being served to users. Meanwhile, the cold water tank 8 cools the purified water discharged thereto from the tank 5. Provided in the hot water tank 7 is a heater 9, which heats purified water inside the tank 7. Meanwhile, a cooling coil 10 is wound about the cold water tank 8 and performs a water cooling operation by its refrigerating cycle in order to cool the water inside the tank 8. A water distributing pipe 12 extends from the top of each of the hot and cold water tanks 7 and 8 to the outside of the front panel 11 of the casing 1. Two taps, that is, hot and cold water taps 13 are mounted to the exposed ends of the distributing pipes 12, respectively. The taps 13 dispense hot and cold purified water from the tanks 7 and 8, respectively. The filters of the above filter unit 4 are elastically and detachably held by a filter clamping device so that the filters are vertically arranged inside the casing 1. In the typical water purifier, the filter clamping device comprises two brackets, that is, upper and lower brackets 16. Each bracket 16 has a mount board, which is screwed to the rear surface of a vertical wall 14 by means of a plurality of set screws 15. The wall 14 is vertically oriented centrally inside the casing 1.
As best seen in FIG. 3, each bracket 16 has a plurality of snap rings which are arranged on the mount board of the bracket 16. The snap rings are spaced apart at regular intervals and elastically clamp the respective filters of the unit 4. Each snap ring is connected to the bracket 16 through a connection rib. The snap rings of each bracket 16 have different sizes, since the cylindrical filters of the unit 4 have different outer diameters. Each snap ring has an elastic ring body 16b with a fitting mouth 16a. The above fitting mount 16a allows each filter to be snapped into the elastic ring body 16b. The snap rings, connection ribs and mount board of each bracket 16 are preferably cast into a single structure.
In operation of the above water purifier, the tap water is supplied from the tap 2 to the filter unit 4 through the pipe 3. Various harmful materials such as heavy metals, bacteria and cancer-causing materials from the tap water are removed from the tap water while the water passes through the filter unit 4. The tap water is thus purified. The purified water is primarily contained in the tank 5 and in turn is discharged to the hot and cold water tanks 7 and 8. The purified water in the hot water tank 7 is heated to an appropriate hot temperature by the heater 9, while the water in the cold water tank 8 is cooled to an appropriate low temperature by the water cooling coil 10.
When the taps 13 are opened by a user, hot and cold purified water of the tanks 7 and 8 flows to the taps 13 through the pipes 12 and in turn is served to the user. In this case, each tap 13 may be opened by, for example, pressing the lever (not shown) of the tap 13 using a cup.
In the above water purifier, the typical filter clamping device has the snap fitting construction which elastically clamps the filters only by the snap rings of the brackets 16. However, the above snap fitting construction of the typical filter clamping device fail to tightly clamp the filters and thereby may permit a vertical movement of the filters relative to the brackets 16 when an impact is applied to the filters. Consequently, the filters of the unit 4 may be suddenly disassembled and/or be deformed, thus reducing the operational reliability of the water purifier.
In addition, the above filter clamping device may permit the filters to be easily separated from the brackets by an impact when the water purifier carelessly falls over backward while the water purifier is handled, e.g. for maintenance. Various elements, arranged about the filter unit inside the casing, may be thus damaged or broken by the separated filters. Therefore, the operational reliability of the water purifier is further reduced.